Could Sergio Martinez be a top 10 contender in 40s or 50s

Puncher's chance? Is he going to knock SRR out?

 

Tony Zale
Georgie Abrams
Archie Moore
Jimmy Bivins
Ezzard Charles
Ceferino Garcia
Fred Apostoli
Jake Lamotta
Charley Burley
Holman Williams
Jack Chase
Eddie Booker
Jose Basora
Cocoa Kid
Bert Lytell
Rocky Graziano
Dave Sands
Randy Turpin
Steve Belloise
Laurent Dauthuille
Ray Robinson
Billy Graham
Kid Gavilan
Rocky Castellani
Carl Olson
Joey Giardello
Bobby Dykes
Gil Turner
Pierre Langlois
Tiberio Mitri
Eduardo Lausse
Gene Fullmer
Bobby Boyd
Carmen Basilio
Tiger Jones
DickTiger

Could he find himself amidst a top 10 list for a couple of years amidst this lot from 1940-1960? Yeah probably. Would he be anything more than a marginal contender? Na.

 

I'm sure mama is proud you can name all these, but a lot of them are borderline stiffs. Please. He has as good a guns as any and decent science. It's a different era but this Classicist dismissal of modern fighter is so fetishistic and trite in logical comport... it's like a bunch of queens at a wedding wishing they were the bride.

 

Mama reserves her true pride for comments like Sergio may knock SRR out

I'm not going to debate this issue with you if that's part of your bizarro world view.

 

I don´t think he would beat Zale.......50-50 against Graziano maybe.......

 

Puncher's chance was the wrong term, I agree. Sergio punches very compactly and/or inside his opponent's punches very well. That's more what I meant. He could certainly derail or disrupt even the best middle. COULD, being the operative word here. He's very good at working clean, efficient lines and getting huge torque on his punches. The SRR that Basilio or Turpin dealt with could also be taken by Sergio. Sorry, but Ray was vulnerable at middleweight, especially as the 50's dragged on.

 

I really do like to think modern fighters can compete back then, but think of how over and over throughout his carreer someone like Barrera proved his greatness, and how Sergio is living off a close fight with Pavlik, a close first fight with Williams, a fluke KO win, and a good win over an unknown Dzindzurik with a loss to Margarito compared to, say, Hopkins dominating the division and scoring flawless victories over undefeated guys like Glenn Johnson who would still make noise later.

Sergio has a good style but his actual head to head is questionable. He's being more overrated than some of the oldtimers because his style looks good on film.

 

A lot of people have been calling his kayo over Williams a fluke or a lucky punch. This is very strange, especially when you consider how hittable Williams has always been and how Martinez hit him so many times with the same shot over the course of all of their time in the ring together. Hell, it's more of a fluke he didn't get knocked out before. Also, yes, he fought close with Williams, a top name in the sport at the time, on two weeks notice, I believe, and out of his own weight class against an awkward fighter. He still even deserved the win, imo.

Martinez has been overrated by many bandwagoners though, I agree with that.

If you didn't know Dzinziruk, that's you. He wasn't unknown to a lot of us. He's been the WBO light middleweight champion for nearing six years. He had also represented at the Olympics and World championships in his amateur career.
While there was nothing special about his resume going into the Martinez fight, he had defeated some quality name opponents like Santos, Lujan and Julio. He was not an unknown and there were many out there eagerly anticipating potential matches with bigger names like Williams, Cotto, Cintron and Martinez for Dzin.

The Margarito fight was obviously with two rather green fighters and isn't a black mark on him as far as I'm concerned. There are a lot of great fighters taking those kinds of hits at similar points in their career, no?

Comparing him to Barrera and Hopkins? I don't know, who's doing that? His career is obviously not comparable but it's far from undeserving of discussion like this in an overrating sense.

 

A few years ago there were some here on ESB classic who were considering Kelly Pavlik a "top 25 all-time middleweight" or some other crap, so I don't take these "latest = greatest" statements too seriously.


Yes, give Martinez his dues, he would crack the top 10 contenders in the 1940s or the 1950s. He might even win the championship if he gets a shot at a champion at the right point in time. Staying in the top 10, and getting a shot at the title, was A LOT harder back then though.

 

Dzinziruk was never anything notable and was well past his best, having totally stagnated as a fighter.

That fight was kind of like how Grigorian cashed in against Freitas when he was old and shot.

Martinez is 'just' a decent entertaining fighter imo.Would fit in well enoughwith guys like Dewitt, Olajide, Kaylor, Simms, Don Lee, Acaries, Minchillo, hard **** green etc to name a lot of the decent 2nd tier 80s guys as a quick example.

He would struggle massively in the 40s 50s to be recognised especially if he was fighting out of Spain or Argentina.Something nobody has mentioned.

 

I advise no one to Google this.

 

He loses to Charles, Moore, probably Burley and definitely Robinson.. but how can you make a judgement on the likes of Chase and Booker? There is no film of these guys fighting, and although undoubtedly good fighters they also lost to worse fighters than Sergio.

I would have loved to have seen him fight the likes of Zale and LaMotta, those would have been brilliant style match ups.

 

:good

 

Martinez is a very good fighter, to his credit..but he has been typically overrated by the General crowd as they are so wont to do. They exalt the flavor of the week to a ridiculous extent..far more so than their predictable charge against the Classic dwellers who prefer the proven greats of the past.

 

Been a fan since 2002, he was a class act back then and I thought he'd missed his chance.

Allot of these guys SS mentions we have no to little footage of. The likes of Moore/Charles/Bivins got to their best between 168-182, not at 160, then again if they wanted to, today they could cut water, rehydrate to come into a MW fight at 180lbs

Sergio would struggle with weight in that era, today he is a 167lb man, ripped to shreds. Holman/Burley were 150lb man, if Sergio safely makes weight he has a serious size advantage on those types of men

Allot of those men Martinez can outspeed and match for skill SS. He does have some technical weaknesses but only a few of those men have the ability to fully exploit that imo.

No he certainly isn't beating the best MW Robinson, a past prime 1 he may though. The likes of Fullmer/Basilio/Cerdan/Graziano he can beat with speed. Tiger he may have too much movement for. Even a Lamotta fight is a toss up and surely would be close